Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Teaching from the HEART

I guess that means I'll be using my backwards design lessons tomorrow! ;) The assessments were created and the activities were planned...tomorrow it'll be time for the teaching!

Can I get mushy for a second? I feel like I've grown a lot as an educator. I look for fun, exciting, interesting ways to teach everything. I rely less and less on those boring worksheets and workbooks. I have to admit, it's because of all of the awesome bloggers I follow. They are an inspiration - filled with creativity, excitement, and love for teaching. And, boy oh boy, it's rubbing off on me!

Anywho, back to the normal, non-gushy stuff....

I {HEART} data! I've been doing monthly fluency tests with my students and they are ROCKING them! I had one girl read 51 words FASTER than she did in October. I had a boy become 70% more accurate since October. R.I.D.I.C.U.L.O.U.S!

How are they becoming better readers?

I make Reading FUN! :) We use my Fluency Cards every day (as a game) to warm-up and to practice our phonics skills. My students LOVE them!

I just put all of my Fluency Card packs into a huge bundle and I'd love for you to check it out! :) It's 5 packs in 1 for a super discounted price. The best thing about it is..... it is a GROWING bundle. So, all of my fluency card packs from here on out will be added to this bundle. That's a lifetime of fluency cards for a super discounted price!

These Fluency Cards are SO fun to use during Reading groups. My students get excited when I make a new set. And, I get so excited when they are learning those tricky words and reading them in sentences! :)

2 comments:

Hi, Janet. I'm purchasing these tonight. Can you tell me exactly how you use them in Guided Reading? I need help for some struggling readers and would love to know what you have the kids do with them. Thanks!

Hi! We use the cards as a warm-up in Reading groups. The students each get a card and when they've sounded it out and can read it fluently, they read it to me and get a new card. The game continues until I run out of cards. The winner is the student with the most cards. I started making single word cards for my biggest strugglers. We practice with the words first and then move onto the sentence cards when they are more comfortable. I try to keep it fast paced so no one gets bored. :) My students love it so much that they insist on playing it during inside recess! I hope it provides your students with lots of fun and practice with their reading! :)